I'd like to pick your brain if you or your kid have Asthma, particularly viral induced.

My 5 year old caught a cold/flu, had normal symptoms it lasted about a week and petered off over two more weeks, then on the fourth week she really started coughing hard at nights and in the morning. I took her into her ped (new, we just moved here) and she gave her an antibiotic, with the instruction that if the coughing persisted longer than 2 days into it to come back in. It did, and we went back in.

She then decided DD had asthma, and prescribed us the whole set up, inhaler, spacer, and breathing blow test thing. In the office DD blew at 80+ percent, but when we were home later after a coughing fit she blew less than 80%.

She never wheezes. She only coughs occasionally now, but everyone in the house is battling allergies right now.

There is someone else who works in an adjacent office who is a "Asthma and Allergy Specialist". I'm worried the doctor was a little gung ho about diagnosing DD, but if she is having trouble breathing I definitely want to give her the inhaler. Would using an inhaler on someone who doesn't need it have any serious ill effects? Does blowing less than 80% for sure mean she has asthma or could it be user error?

Google Cough Variant Asthma. It is what DS has...he doesn't wheeze. He coughs, particularly at night. We do pulmicort twice a day, and albuterol 4 times a day when he is bad.

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Kristen
Middle school teacher by day, super mom by night
Mommy to The Boss~2007, The Energizer Bunny~2009, and The Princess~2011
My kids are no longer in diapers, but somehow, my computer keeps finding its way back here...

DS2 had an "asthma attack" a week and a half ago. Aside from an occasional normal kid cough/allergies he'd never shown any signs of it. I took him to the Dr. the next day and she said we'd keep an eye on him but that it's not good to label a child after just one episode. She prescribed Albuterol. He started running a high fever the next day (so we started antiboitocs) but when I took him in for a recheck the next week she said his lungs sound clear and the congestion is in his throat, not his lungs. She suggested cough medicine. He won't take the cough medicine so he still coughs occasionally but not at night anymore, only when he's up running around and gets winded. We've had him sleeping at an incline since the "asthma attack" and that seems to help.

Doctors were also quick to label my niece with asthma after one asthma attack on the playground at school. I think she was just playing hard, it was allergy season, and she got winded. She's never had any other issues with it.

Can u ask ur kid on how much air it feels she is getting in? I had an episode in run race & I felt like barely getting anything & it didn't return for a long time. If return to breathing well fast just winded but if not then help maybe.

Just because you can't hear any wheezing doesn't mean that it isn't happening inside the lungs. It isn't always audible, and sometimes can only be heard with a stethoscope and some kids with asthma don't wheeze at all, they may crackle or bubble inside the lungs.

I would set up an appt with a pulmonologist or allergy specialist for a more thorough exam. Because asthma can be so serious and an attack can happen at any time I would get seen by a specialist if you have concerns.

Can u ask ur kid on how much air it feels she is getting in? I had an episode in run race & I felt like barely getting anything & it didn't return for a long time. If return to breathing well fast just winded but if not then help maybe.

That's a good idea and a bit of a duh moment.
Thank you for the replies and things to google, I appreciate it!

Get a referral to a pulm. My ped was treating DD for asthma but incorrectly. Once we saw the pulm we realized how bad she was. She had "severe asthma that [was] not being controlled". The pulm changed her inhaler and voila! She was a new kid. She went from coughing a lot to never coughing.

She's actually already stopped the coughing fits, nothing at night or during play/running around or anything. Now its like, one cough in the evening or afternoon. I'm going to keep checking her output, it was high this morning so I'll try to get a baseline at least.

Google Cough Variant Asthma. It is what DS has...he doesn't wheeze. He coughs, particularly at night. We do pulmicort twice a day, and albuterol 4 times a day when he is bad.

OMG thanks for this! DD has been battling this cough for a couple years now. It comes and goes, but last for weeks when she has it. It's almost always associated with a cold and then a respiratory infection. And definitely gets worse when we get vog (volcanic smog) and when it's cold (the winter months are the worst for us). She coughs so bad at night, she sometimes can't breathe and then vomits.
Her cough actually started up last week, and we gave her Pulmacort at night. It made it worse?? I tried again the next day at her nap, and yup, it heightened her cough. We stopped it and have been doing just albuterol as needed and she's almost completely better.